The Narendra Modi government seems to be on a mission to crack down on senior leaders of the Opposition.

On Tuesday, 16 May, former Union Minister and senior Congress leader P Chidambaram was raided by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) for alleged criminal conspiracy in the grant of a Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) approval to INX Media.

On the same day, the Income Tax Department raided 22 locations with links to Rashtriya Janata Dal supremo Lalu Prasad Yadav. However, a defiant Lalu dared the government to take him on.

Meanwhile, Chidambaram and his son remained in news through the day. The CBI said it would look into other FIPB clearances granted during the senior Chidambaram's term as Union Finance Minister.

Sources said the Enforcement Directorate (ED) is preparing to register a fresh case under the stringent Prevention of Money Laundering Act.

On Tuesday morning, the CBI booked Chidambaram's son Karti P Chidambaram, Sheena Bora murder accused media baron Peter Mukerjea and wife Indrani Mukerjea, the former owners of the INX Media and INX News, and unnamed Finance Ministry officials on charges of criminal conspiracy and cheating, among others.

Simultaneously, 16 premises in Chennai, Delhi, Mumbai, Gurugram and other cities were raided by the agency. The raids also targeted the residence of the former Union Minister.

At time of writing this report, the raids were still on at the offices of Chess Management Services, a company where Karti Chidambaram is a director.

Vineet Vinayak, Joint Director of the CBI, in a press briefing, said that the agency seized documents and hard drives during the course of searches. The CBI official said the investigations were in the preliminary stages, and everybody related to the investigations will be examined in due course, suggesting that the former minister may be interrogated by the agency.

P Chidambaram, meanwhile, did not speak to the media outside the Bengaluru High Court, he released a statement calling the raids an attempt to silence him. "The government, using the CBI and other agencies, is targeting my son and his friends,” he said in the statement.

Karti Chidambaram, too, told the media that the investigating agencies have no proof against him, and were just targeting him to stifle his father’s voice.

Several leaders of the Congress party, including general secretary Digvijaya Singh and spokesperson Randeep Surjewala, jumped to their colleague's defence, saying the former minister will not be cowed down by such acts.

Union Cabinet Minister and senior BJP leader Ananth Kumar, meanwhile, reacting to Chidambaram's allegations of vendetta, said, ''Only black money and corruption is being targeted.''

ED had registered a case against INX Media for suspected FEMA violations in 2010. The case was initiated when it was found that foreign entities based out of Mauritius bought INX shares at Rs 862.31 apiece, which was 86.2 times more than the face value.

The agency reportedly claimed that the FDI received by INX Media was invested in stepdown subsidiaries without approval of the FIPB. The ED is learnt to have come across these violations while it was investigating the financial dealings of corporate lobbyist Niira Radia.

The ED, which is probing FIPB approval in the Aircel-Maxis deal, in which Karti Chidambaram's name has cropped up, is learnt to have come across the role of Karti-linked firms in the FIPB approval granted to the INX Media and INX News, last year.

INX media group companies were also subjected to an inquiry by the Serious Fraud Investigations Office of the Ministry of Corporate Affairs on its shareholding pattern.

Insiders also say that both the agencies had seen renewed coordination since Alok Verma took over as Director of the CBI.

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